by Bruce Blake
“No,” I croaked and fell to my knees. “No.”
I tipped forward, expecting to fall to the ground and suck more dust and dirt into my esophagus, hoping it would be enough to put me out of my misery. Instead, my forearms struck a hard surface eighteen inches above where the ground should have been.
My left eyelid opened a crack.
The water shimmered like liquid silver, like mercury escaped from the thermometer. I opened my other eye and stared. Somehow, without moving, I’d arrived at the fountain, but now I didn’t know what to do. I’d forgotten why I wanted to get to the water in the first place.
Until a drop splashed onto my hand.
The cool of it, the wetness, reminded me what water was for and I plunged my face into it, sucked it into my mouth. Nothing ever tasted so good.
I did my best to drink the entire contents of the fountain. My head throbbed with the cold of the water but I didn’t stop. My belly bulged with the weight of it but I didn’t stop. It seemed like I’d gone so long without it, I didn’t want to take it for granted. What if I never saw water again?
Eventually I came up for air. I pulled my face out of the water, threw my head back imagining droplets flying from me, tossed into the air by my wet hair like supermodel Elle MacPherson doing a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition shoot.
No one ever accused me of being a super model.
I remained on my knees, face tilted skyward looking at the dark clouds and wishing for sunshine. How good it would feel to have the sun’s warming rays shining on my face, drying the water on my cheeks. I closed my eyes to imagine the feeling and it suddenly felt like years since I last saw the sun.
“Icarus.”
I opened my eyes at the sound of my name but didn’t move as I attempted to determine if I’d actually heard it. Water splashed and flowed. My breath whispered through my lips. Nothing else.
My imagination.
“Icarus.”
Definitely not my imagination. A woman’s voice spoke the word, though it sounded indistinct and warbly, disguised by the sound of the fountain. I lowered my head slowly, my aching muscles tensing.
The water cascading down the fountain transformed the figure of the woman standing opposite me into a shimmering silhouette. I made out her dark hair and light skin but no other features. My mouth dropped open at her beauty. We stayed in that frozen tableau for a minute until she stepped out from behind the watery curtain.
“Piper?”
I jammed my fists into my eyes, determined to wipe her away if she should be an illusion. When I took them away, she remained. She raised her hand and twiddled her fingers in a gesture of hello.
“Piper!”
I jumped up, my overworked muscles suddenly feeling revitalized—by the water, by her presence, by both. I circumnavigated the fountain and threw my arms around the angel. She returned the embrace, head laid on my shoulder, hair tickling the tip of my nose. I breathed deep to have the aroma of her but smelled only water and dust.
After a minute enjoying her body pressed against mine, I leaned back and looked into her dark eyes. She smiled.
“Where have you been?”
Not to my surprise, she shrugged. It did, however, catch me off guard when she leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. I didn’t resist. An excitement built in my stomach as the kiss prolonged, turning from ‘hello, I missed you, friend’ into something more. She finished the kiss and pulled away leaving a tingle of excitement in my stomach but I quickly realized it resided there alone, the usual angelic jolt of her touch missing. My concerned eyebrows dipped toward the bridge of my nose.
“Is something wrong?”
Her smile withered. “Trevor.”
“You told me: Poe brought him here.”
In my desire to quench my thirst, I’d put thoughts of Trevor’s plight and my anger at Poe out of my mind but the mention of his name brought it all back full force.
“It’s worse, Icarus.”
“Worse?” The statement made my heart beat faster, threatening to turn into an out of control train. “What happened? Is he okay?”
“Poe lost him.”
My arms slipped from around her, I took a step back, dumfounded.
“Lost him? What do you mean?”
“He’s gone. She doesn’t know where he is.”
“She doesn’t know where he is?” The volume of my voice crept up a few decibels. “She brought my son to Hell and lost him?”
Piper put her hand on my shoulder—again, no tingle or shock.
“I sense he’s unharmed for now.”
“For now.” I felt like a freaking parrot, but my distressed brain refused to find words of its own.
“I’m looking for him right now.”
I stared into her eyes, finally understanding why her touch had no effect—she wasn’t really here.
But what about the kiss?
My brain shook back into line and rediscovered how to form original sentences.
“I have to get out of here.” I looked around at the fountain, the stone walls. “Help me get out of here.”
Her hand fell away from my shoulder and she stepped back, head shaking side to side, her opacity fading the way a shadow begins to lighten as sun breaks through the clouds. I reached for her and my fingers passed through her hand.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded. “I need your help. Show me how to get out of here.”
“I can’t,” she replied, her voice becoming ghostly the same way as her form. “I’ll find him, Icarus. I’ll make him safe for you.”
She disappeared with a wave of her hand and I stood, jaw clenched in anger, shoulders slumped in defeat. I sagged down, sat on the edge of the fountain and hung my head. The water swirled and eddied into miniature whirlpools, capturing my attention.
A picture formed, became a scene.
In the water, I saw Trevor sitting on a rock, shivering with fear, alone. In the distance, Poe danced and cavorted, surrounded by others engaged in the same reckless dance. They disappeared into the darkness at the horizon, fading into Hell’s night. Trevor called out weakly, the terror he felt evident in his voice. He stood and waved his arms in desperation. Behind him, great black wings spread out, enveloping the night.
They wrapped around him and the vision disappeared.
I stood abruptly, shaking off the shock, replacing it with anger at what Poe had done.
How could she desert my son?
I headed for the nearest corridor striding fast, purposefully, though I didn’t know where to go. All I knew was I needed to find my son.
And Poe.
†‡†
I stared down at the thread running between my feet.
Fine, black, barely noticeable, Hell’s dirt camouflaged the tiny filament. I bent at the waist to get a better look, reached out and brushed away the dust partially obscuring it, careful not to touch it. It continued toward the corner ahead of me. I pivoted, looked back along my path, and saw the thread disappeared five feet behind me. Stepping carefully so as not to tread on it, I went to where I no longer saw it, moved a pebble and some dirt and found this was where the line of thread started.
Or ended.
More than two hours had passed since I left the fountain, in my best judgment—probably not great judgment given the lack of sun crossing the sky, the lack of difference between night and day, and not wearing a watch. Maybe longer, maybe less...whatever. I’d traversed the corridors desperately at first, convinced I’d find my way out through the sheer will to rescue my son. For the last while, I’d more or less wandered aimlessly, with no idea where to go, trying not to despair.
I was about to give up when I spotted the thread.
I picked up the end, brought it toward my face, and eight feet of it came up out of the dirt, dust falling from it like a builder’s chalk line. I gave it a little tug and it stretched like any thread would, so I pulled harder.
It snapped.
“Shit.”
I
dropped the piece remaining in my hand and strode forward to find where the other end went. It coiled in a small pile ten feet down the corridor, the frayed end pointing toward me. I picked it up, stared at it running down the corridor out of sight and sighed. I felt manipulated, but did I have any other, better choice? For all I knew, I’d been wandering the labyrinth for days without a glimmer of finding an exit.
Fuck it.
I followed the thread, tracing its path hand over hand, careful not to tug too hard and break it again. It ran straight for a while past a couple of openings, then right, left, left, right. With each step, hope grew inexplicably in me, fortifying my effort, quickening my pace.
Two more lefts, a long straightaway and a final right brought me into a huge open space filled with people milling about like a crowd waiting for a train. They looked much like the people we’d seen in the city, though perhaps a little less dirty and aromatic, a little more confused-looking. The thread ran right into the middle of them.
I stared, incredulous.
All this time, they were so close.
I didn’t see any way out of the ceiling-less room, so I decided following the thin, black guide line was the best course of action. A deep breath filled my lungs, my stomach gurgled reminding me that, though I’d quenched my thirst, I hadn’t eaten in a while, but I could deal with hunger. I waded into the crowd.
The black thread slid through my fingers as shoulders and elbows jostled me. The ones who bumped into me didn’t seem to notice they’d done so and I fought the urge to get angry at them like I’d have done in your average, earthbound mob.
“Hey,” I admonished when one particularly solid shoulder spun me one-hundred-eighty degrees.
The man who’d bumped me turned toward the sound of my voice. I recognized him immediately as the steroid-gorilla I’d met watching the door at Rocky’s 24-Hour Fitness Center. Even in Hell, his muscles were big enough to make it appear as though someone stuck two full-sized men together into one body.
I didn’t know he died.
He looked at me with the same confused look all the others wore—they must have been handing them out at the door—and his lips moved without creating any sound. Unfortunately, I’m the world’s worst lip reader, so I don’t know what he said. Maybe checking to see if I remembered my club pass. I gazed into his defeated eyes and a vision came to my mind of him sitting in an empty bathtub, his shoulders shaking with sobs. It was the night Alfred died, and there was blood on the knife he held in his right hand, on his jeans, in the tub. My heart plummeted into my gut and I opened my mouth to say something but he lost interest and disappeared into the crowd as well as any man who stood six inches taller than everyone else could.
I shook my head and returned my attention to the thread but, in my distraction, I’d dropped it. I scanned the ground at my feet, but didn’t see it. My shoes kicked dirt aside. Nothing. I circled, pivoting on my left foot like a basketball player. Still nothing.
I stretched to my tallest to see over the crowd. The walls seemed farther away. I saw no opening in them, no exit—not even the doorway through which I’d come.
I’m never going to get out of here.
I dropped to my knees and sifted through the reddish-orange dirt with the tips of my fingers but yielded nothing other than dirty fingernails.
It has to be here.
Suddenly, I felt like the thread was my last hope of salvation, for rescue from this holding pen for the damned. I didn’t know where it led, or who or what placed it for me to find, but I had nothing else. My hope literally hung by a thread.
I shuffled forward on hands and knees as legs thumped against my sides; I dodged knees inadvertently or purposely aimed for my head. The crowd grew thick around me, slowing my search. Someone’s foot mashed my fingers into the ground as they strode by and I cringed.
Where is the Goddamn thread?
I inched my way through the forest of legs, my stepped-on fingers throbbing. A pair of legs which looked different than the others—thick, green, scaly—went by and I fought the urge to look up—limbs so unattractive wouldn’t be attached to anything good.
Where is it?
Too many people around me stopped my forward motion. I attempted to move forward, left, right, and finally backward but legs penned me in on all sides. My fingers, colored orange like the dirt I crawled upon, scratched at the tiny patch of earth in front of me. Nothing but dust and rock.
Defeated, I fell to my elbows, rested my forehead on my grubby hands. When I’d found the thread, hope filled me—here was my Ariadne leading me out of the labyrinth. But now, with the thread gone, hope was gone, too. I cowered on the ground, head hung in despair.
A hand touch the top of my head.
At first, I ignored it. Many hands, feet, elbows, shoulders had contacted me, so it meant nothing, didn’t pull me from my wallowing. When it remained, it drew my attention. When it stroked my hair comfortingly, I looked up.
A black skirt which brushed the dirt hid the person’s feet. I gulped around a knot which formed immediately in my throat, remembering the long, black trench coats favored by Azrael and his Carrion cohorts. My eyes traveled farther up, past a belt fashioned of a piece of rope, a wide sleeve concealing all but the fingers of the hand holding the end of my black thread.
I pushed myself back to my knees to look into the face of the woman holding my thread.
“Mother?”
A loose piece of black hair fell over her forehead and across her left eye but it didn’t hide the sadness flickering deep within them in spite of her smile.
“Son.”
Bruce Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost
Chapter Twenty-One
Sister Agnes—born Alesya, but no saints shared the name, so she became Agnes when she took her vows—sat on the edge of her bed reading the letter for the third time. She’d expected the news for a long time, dreaded it every time the mail came, so the contents shouldn’t have surprised her. He’d been ill for months, but knowing the inevitable didn’t make it hurt any less, nor did her learnings and beliefs about what happened, now he was gone.
Her father had been a good man, treated her like a princess, supported her when she was eighteen and announced her intention to become a nun. Her atheist father didn’t waste a word talking her out of it, only told her how proud he was, that he secretly wished he shared her faith.
Five years later, he was dead without anything close to that kind of faith, and her worries began. Her belief in God and Heaven was unshakable, but on the fate of unbelievers, she felt lost. She wanted to believe a forgiving God would find a place in the firmament for a good and caring man like her father whose one sin was lacking faith or, more accurately, lacking proof to give him faith. But Father Dominic told her unbelievers weren’t allowed into Heaven.
The paper slipped from her fingers, floated to the floor between her feet. She watched it settle on the carpet, the tear drops upon it discoloring the paper, smearing the words staring up at her. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Her shoulders shook as she did her best to stifle them lest she disturb any of the other sisters in their rooms.
When she heard the whisper of a footstep on carpet, she clamped her lips closed around the lament and prepared to apologize for the noise. She wiped tears away with the back of her hand, breathed deeply through her nose to collect herself and caught the aroma of cinnamon.
“There, there.”
The deep rumble of the man’s voice startled Sister Agnes. She looked up, too grief-stricken by the loss of her father to be confused by his presence in her residence, too overcome by sadness to be afraid. The man towered over her, his long, dark hair spilling past his shoulders, an oilskin coat hanging below his knees making him look like he’d wandered in from the Australian outback. She looked into his face and saw caring eyes, beautiful features; some of the sadness and grief which had settled into her body lifted, easing the heaviness in her limbs.
“Who...who are you?”
He reached out and swept hair off her forehead, fingertips brushing her skin lightly. A sensation surged through her head and for a second it seemed like her room sparkled. She sat straighter, unconsciously pulling her face from his touch as her eyes widened, her mouth fell open.
“I am sorry your father’s time has come.”
She stared at the man, wanting to ask him how he knew, but her lips didn’t attempt the words. If she opened her mouth to speak, she suspected they would produce nothing but a sorrowful wail. The man removed his coat, hung it over the back of the chair at her desk, then sat on the mattress beside her. Sister Agnes scooted away keeping three feet between them.
“I will not hurt you, Alesya. Do not be afraid.”
“How...?”
The man stroked her cheek, halting the question. The electricity of his touch warmed her, comforted her, but it wasn’t the electricity like she felt on her prom night when Kelly Booker slid his penis into her in the back seat of his parents’ Cadillac—a brief shock of excitement and pain, over practically before it began. This was closer to how she’d felt later that night, when God came to her and beckoned her to be his bride.
A touch to change her life, calling her to Heaven.
“Am I dying?”
“Ssh, Alesya. You are not dying, you are very much alive. Perhaps more alive than ever before.”
He slid closer and she felt heat radiating from him. His hand found her thigh and years of training and study, belief and chastity told her to move away. She couldn’t. His touch comforted her, spoke to her. She looked down at his big hand resting on her leg where no man’s hand had touched since Kelly Booker’s and her breath shortened. The electricity of his touch swelled up her thigh, into her groin, her lower stomach, filling places empty for half a decade.
“I am here to tell you your father will be taken care of. You need not worry.”
Grief and relief exploded in her. She let out one loud sob, then buried her face in the man’s chest. He encircled her shoulders, held her tight, consoling her, and she felt the muscles of his arm against her back and found herself imaging what they looked like. The thought sent a shiver down her spine. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying his touch—she belonged to God, not any man—but something about him made her feel closer to God. Instead of pulling away, she settled into his embrace.
